Do you have a blog that hasn't been updated? Our Mayor does!

Hey, does any one else wonder why the City of Vancouver Mayor's blog has not been updated in 8 months?

leavitt4vancouver.blogspot.com

Yes, I wish the mayor would stop playing with his phone bouncing tweets and email with the "Pontiff" of the Board of Commissioners and spend a little more time letting his community know where he wants to go further with this community? And may I ask why some kid intern need extra credit could not update this site?

Last I remember, it was originally created because of his race with the former Mayor Pollard.....

Kiggins Theater is looking for YOU!

For those who may not have heard, the local Kiggins theater is going through a revitalization. They're taking out the old seats, refurbishing up the old place and the new owner is looking for help! There is a forum and place on Facebook where they are discussing the very options they are going to  work on.

A lot of different community assets are coming together to bring back this wonderful community treasure where a number of us kids and teenagers from many generations have gone to see second run movies with cheap popcorn, cheap candy and a good TIME! I will always remenber in the 1980's when I was a kid and teenager of all the fun movies that I got to see with my family and friends there.

KXL radio is looking to do  a feature spot or interview with the people that are working on restoring this wonderful treasure in Downtown Vancouver. And the more the news gets out there, the more help they could use.

If you would like to get in contact with them, please go to Facebook and search for "The new Kiggins Theater" and you will find a place to find out more information on what is going on.

Frustration of Mozilla Firefox - Thunderbird Archives and Google Chrome Web App Extension system

Both of these systems have been a near frustration level for me over the past year. It seems like both have been turned into a situation where they are removing more and more of their searchable functions to their systems to move their addons - extensions database servers into a more Flash like - Apple Itune - Iphone system. 

I do not like having to have my scroll amount of queries limited to 10 or 20 results? Why not offer 50 or 100 per page like it used to be? What if I want do not want to go through all of the fluff (templates, extensible themes, eye browser candy, backgrounds?) What if plugin or addon functionality actually is more important to me? 

I could care SO less about skinnable web browsers. I want functionality of the browser OVER a bunch of jpeg and icon candy that comes with both. I don't own a mobile platform, I don't own an iphone OR Droid Cell phone. Or their rate limited cell plans.

Form factorization is so much not a part of what I want to see in a fully functioning Operating System or the browser that I use. Functionality is what I need. And I bet there are a good many people out here that would agree with me on that.  Please leave all the useless eye-candy and other none-functionality items archives and move them into drop box in another section of archives that can still be searchable for people that need it but does hog up the results of a addons search engine results. 

Creating wonderful memories out of fodder

Well, it was two weeks today that I moved into a fine little house in the alleyway after numerous attempts to live with neighbors and room mates did not work out as I had hoped.

This new place is wonderful.

A neighbor shares three garden plots, another neighbor has satellite dishes galore and has some technical prowess, another neighbor burns the midnight oil like I do, working from from home doing remote discussions and phone support for local companies that help with various functions of their "oversized, compounded electronic calculators."

I live in one of the many small neighborhoods that are adorned in this tranquil city. The wonderful walking trails, the numerous bikepaths, lakes the go for miles, secret salmon fishing spots when you can fish in the appropriate season, I could go on and on about the wonderful people here.

(..But the more embarrassing thing is how the local city council is treating each other like spoiled kids and the mayor who seems to lack all foundation and quality of a leader. I do believe he will be replaced next election if does not step down.. And I could go on but it is not worth to re-post here. The local snooze media does a great job of cover the quirks...)

The reason I chose to move back here in 2004, was the memories as a teenager and young adult of the wonderful people that I met here from the former mayor who was a neighbor, important business people down to the lowly clerk at the Goody's Market who kept an eye out for us so we would not get into any serious trouble.

And for my many brothers & sisters that gained a wonderful education here and inspiration from all of the people around us. And a lot of that change has come from new people moving into town and offering a different perspective than what you can find in other parts of the United States.

And as our county continues to grow from near 400,000 or more and the need to densify our community from lowly world war two housing that exists to the north of Downtown Vancouver, all the way out to 112th Avenue - Chkalov Drive, we will be continuing add more and more people as the regions bedroom community and people continue to look for work over in Portland to survive.

This community has a LOT of volunteers that step up for various community projects from house weatherization to trail maintenance to figuring out how they can partner with non-profit and local companies to save various wonderful aspects.

The new remodel of the Kiggins Theater? (Go to Facebook and search for it. They have a Facebook forum there.)

Trying to figure out a way to clean out the Burnt Bridge Creek, Salmon Creek and the Lewis River as our northern border with Skamania and Cowlitz counties.

The Daily Chuckle

If you are a local in the City of Vancouver, Clark County or any other member of the tribe of the local faithfuls and you need a little bit of New Year cheer, head over to the Daily Couve! :)

i am so blown away with laughter every few days, I can't help keep the guffaws away.

Would a local developer love the look of a multi-storied bridge?

Yep, there seems to be some malcontentedness here "in the land of the liquid sunshine" has posted a message by carrier pigeon to the local and regional officials and bridge builders that they do NOT want to be looking at a multi-storied or stacked bridge.

It seems they want to see the a smaller, one lane bridge so they can see the local F-15, historic plane take-offs and landings from Portland International Airport along with the Mount Hood in the background.

They would also like to see nothing blocking their view of the moon, the stars and the flatter the bridge, the better from their multi-million dollar condo view! I mean it has to be thinner than the Portland Mayor's haircut.

If you would like to hear more of what the local officials really think and what is coming down the pike for the revitalized Columbia River Crossing Project Project Sponsorship Council:

http://www.cityofvancouver.us/cvtv/cvtvarchive2/Community_Events/2010_Events/Columbia_River_Crossing_Project_Sponsors_Council_12-10-10.wmv

And please do not forget to let them know how you FEEL about how they are doing! http://www.columbiarivercrossing.org

Some times Money & power are just not enough

Years ago, I learned a simple fact of life. That greed, money, power, corruption are just not some thing that I thrive on. They are like shackles on the mind. Limiters of freedom, controls of the very things that are distractions of life. They take away the good, the loving, the most positive things in life.

They are some thing enslaves all of humanity all over the universe at one time or another, at one pace of life.

This evening I was reminded of my personal story. That I was not going to see my sick father who on his own has a weak heart, a chronic disease that took him away from his family for most of his life. It may be one of the only diseases in one of its forms that is a choice can change from living as a normal human being to someone who has to live decades in and OUT medical care settings.

I could not go see him because I do not have the financial resources. I too suffer from this debilitating disease. I TOO have the chronic symptoms & kidney issues because for two decades I did not take care of myself. I have had the retinal, the foot infections, the heart attacks. I have been in out and out of the Emergency Rooms with pneumonia, bronchitis.

Some around me say that I am a spitten image of my father's life journey. That I learned all of my life from him. The failed relationships, friendships, the usury of people?

There are some things in life throughout this experience, you begin to wonder life is really worth living. The day-to-day pain, the mental anguish, the chemical imbalances, the stress of the a failing body. The insufferable loss on some many different levels.

I cry every night wishing & wondering from the higher power what would he want me to come back tomorrow to do. No life is worth losing what I have had to endure. Even the more horrible cancerous chronic disease takes its toll faster than the decades long than the nightmare that has consumed me and my family.

But what seems to me to be the worst thing another human could do without any sensible reasoning is to tell a fellow family member that you cannot see them BECAUSE you don't have a penny, a dime, quarter, a dollar, ten dollars? To go see a dying family member who maybe on their last day of life.

That you further do not have the emotional stomach and fortitude to watch what will be happening to you in less than a decade because that family member is living with the same disease, the very same symptoms, the very same issues that you have lived and will live with with the rest of your days and existance. That you will have to watch as the resuscitated shell is living with mechanical means to artificially keep them alive and that you will be that person so very soon.

That you won't have the enjoyment of having children, to have the chance of loving another person or to enjoy happiness of a day because you too are slowly leaving this earth with so much internal strife, medical uncertainty.

Well, I am going to leave this one up to a higher power because there is nothing left within me anymore.......